As many call for stricter climate regulations, some scientists are pushing back on what they see is a fraudulent narrative.

From The Epoch Times. Two prominent climate scientists have taken on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rules to cut CO2 emissions in electricity generation, arguing in testimony that the regulations “will be disastrous for the country, for no scientifically justifiable reason.”

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Citing extensive data to support their case, William Happer, professor emeritus in physics at Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), argued that the claims used by the EPA to justify the new regulations are not based on scientific facts but rather political opinions and speculative models that have consistently proven to be wrong. 

“The unscientific method of analysis, relying on consensus, peer review, government opinion, models that do not work, cherry-picking data and omitting voluminous contradictory data, is commonly employed in these studies and by the EPA in the Proposed Rule,” Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen stated. “None of the studies provides scientific knowledge, and thus none provides any scientific support for the Proposed Rule.”

“All of the models that predict catastrophic global warming fail the key test of the scientific method: they grossly overpredict the warming versus actual data,” they stated. “The scientific method proves there is no risk that fossil fuels and carbon dioxide will cause catastrophic warming and extreme weather.”

Climate models like the ones that the EPA is using have been consistently wrong for decades in predicting actual outcomes, Mr. Happer told The Epoch Times. …

He and his colleague argued that the EPA has grossly overstated the harm from CO2 emissions while ignoring the benefits of CO2 to life on Earth. …

According to Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen’s testimony, “600 million years of CO2 and temperature data contradict the theory that high levels of CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming.”

They present CO2 and temperature data indicating much higher levels of both CO2 and temperatures than today, with little correlation between the two. They also argue that current CO2 levels are historically at a low point.

“The often highly emphasized 140 [parts per million] increase in CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Age is trivial compared to CO2 changes over the geological history of life on Earth,” they stated. 

In addition, the scientists’ testimony to the EPA stated that the agency’s emissions rules fail to consider the fact that CO2 and fossil fuels are essential to life on earth, particularly human life. …

More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more plant growth and higher farming yields, they argued. In addition, synthetic fertilizers, which are derivatives of natural gas, are responsible for nearly half the world’s food production today. “Net zero” goals would reduce CO2 emissions by more than 40 gigatons per year, reducing the food supply proportionally, they said.

In addition to disregarding the benefits of CO2, they stated, the EPA’s emission rules and the global warming narrative that has been used to justify them are based on flawed data. …

The global warming narrative argues that as people burn fossil fuels, they emit higher concentrations of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere, which absorbs sunlight and creates a “greenhouse effect,” trapping the sun’s radiation and warming the earth. 

But one aspect of CO2 emissions that global warming models fail to take into account, Mr. Happer said, is a phenomenon called “saturation,” or the diminishing effect of CO2 in the atmosphere at higher concentrations.

“At the current concentrations of CO2, around 400 parts per million, it decreases the radiation to space by about 30 percent, compared to what you would have if you took it all away,” Mr. Happer said. “So that’s enough to cause quite a bit of warming of the earth, and thank God for that; it helps make the earth habitable, along with the effects of water vapor and clouds.”

“But if you could double the amount of CO2 from 400 to 800, and that will take a long time, the amount that you decrease radiation to space is only one percent,” Mr. Happer said. “Very few people realize how hard it is for additional carbon dioxide to make a difference to the radiation to space. That’s what’s called saturation, and it’s been well known for a century.”

In addition to scientific arguments about why global warming is overblown, the scientists also cite data showing large discrepancies between global warming models and actual observations. In some cases, Mr. Happer and Mr. Lindzen say, data has been disingenuously manipulated to fit the climate-change narrative. …